Issue link: http://maconmagazine.uberflip.com/i/1523410
June/July 2024 | maconmagazine.com 107 L ate one night, I was seated on my couch in a fuzzy robe, headphones in place, with my laptop open. I could almost hear my late choir director David Harrison telling me to "sit tall" and "louder is not better" as I studied the sheet music. While I held a microphone front of me, two sleeping dogs on each side looked like my backup singers in the world's coziest recording studio. I sang my soprano lines and looked up to see my husband standing with a very confused expression. Before he could ask, I laughed and told him, "Shh. I am sending my voice to be part of the choir." I recorded my part, loaded it in Dropbox, and emailed Alanah Sabatini, the creator of an album called "Hymns Reclaimed." Her compositions use the voices submitted from people from around the world to form a virtual choir, singing new lyrics to old hymns. The sheet music on my laptop felt quite different than the black choir folders I have held in choir lo s all my life. These days, my heart soars when I sing in the "Y'all Come" Choir at Centenary United Methodist Church. My voice? I am not belting an operatic aria or wowing a stadium crowd. I just love singing. I love the sound of a choir. In midnight living rooms, houses of worship, and even beer gardens across our city, choir voices fuse singular sounds into dynamic anthems. At Vineville United Methodist Church, the praise team, children's choirs, and adult chancel choir shape spiritual experiences. "To sing together is a shared heritage of almost every faith tradition across the world's myriad cultures and customs," said Cannon McClain, director of music. The Vineville choir, in formal crimson robes, promises to "engage a deep sense of communal support and shared effort," says McClain. Cultivating heritage is a musical matter, says Dr. Nathan Myrick, author of "Music for Others: Care, Justice, and Relational Ethics in Christian Music." Myrick, an assistant professor in Mercer University Townsend School of Music, says, "We are inherently social, relational creatures, and being in a choir is a profoundly affective way of cultivating those relationships." In sacred music, the relationship between choir and listener is not simply that of a performer and an audience. When choirs lead religious rituals, Myrick says they are "not presenting music, they are participating with the rest of the congregation in worship." Choristers at Christ Church Episcopal connect not only to other people in the present, but also to the voices of the past. Jonathan Poe, director of music and liturgy, says, "sacred music in worship has the ability to transport us to another place C U P S A N D W A T E R Humanity in harmony In a city with houses of faith on nearly every corner, Rev. Dr. Erin Robinson Hall's column explores the interconnectedness of Macon's faith communities and the diverse ways Maconites nourish their spiritual health and the wellbeing of those around them, inspired by "On Being" podcast host Krista Tippet's idea that "religion is as cup; spirituality is as water." Photos by Jessica Whitley How choirs connect us wherever — and however — we lift our shared voices in song Composer Alanah Sabatini. 89 volunteers, including Hall, recorded their harmonies and sent them to Sabatini for their album, "Hymns Reclaimed." Photo courtesy of Sabatini.